


Shades and Apparitions and Such

by SeverinadeStrango



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom - A. C. Crispin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 15:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12510664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeverinadeStrango/pseuds/SeverinadeStrango
Summary: Even as a boy, Cutler had always been rather open-minded towards the possibility of supernatural forces.  Later in his life, this open-mindedness becomes dependence, and to some degree, desperation.





	Shades and Apparitions and Such

**Author's Note:**

> An entry for Day 26 of Tumblr user horrificmemes' "31 Horrific Days" challenge. If you enjoy my writing, more of it can be found on my own Tumblr page - the url of which is the same as my username here.

It hadn’t taken Cutler Beckett very long, when he was a boy, to realize that God didn't exist. 

That everything could be explained perfectly by science – if there was a God, and if he was just, then why did his father continue to slip out of the house at night and worry mother? Why was mother sick, why was he even _more_ sickly? Why were his brothers, crude and uncaring, praised for – well, he couldn’t for the life of him (as a boy of only twelve) figure out _what_ they were praised for.

He’d only ever wanted that approval – and he was too weak to become a soldier, he was not _nearly_ pious enough to become a member of the clergy. The one thing he actually did find any sort of enjoyment in was maths and the study of the physical sciences, academia was his haven and being accepted as a _professor_ to Cambridge or Oxford? Surely then, nothing in the world would be wrong.

Except for the fact that this was definitely not what his father (and therefore, the entire family) wanted. He needed to be a man of _honor_ if he was to gain respect, and that meant earning a title – and as the years passed the thought of achieving a professoriate seemed to move further and further away. It was a fantasy and nothing more – and now Cutler was applying his skills and prowess in calculations and strategies and logic to the family business. But he never, he _never_ let go of the sciences, the studies of the intricate, and of how the world worked.

Science ruled out God.

But what science had _not_ ruled out was ghosts. 

Cutler had just barely turned eighteen when his mother fell dreadfully ill – but this time, this time she did not recover, and passed away quietly in the middle of the night, yet when Cutler awoke again the next morning, even before he had taken one _step_ outside of his bedroom, he had already known.

He had already known because she had come to him last night and said her good-byes and God, if there _was_ one (there couldn’t be one, otherwise it would be father gone and not mother), don’t _let_ this be real, it had to be a dream – maybe he was feverish himself! Yes, this was a hallucination – they all seemed to be so lifelike. Yes. Yes, that was it. 

A few minutes later he stood frozen by her bedside, staring at his mother’s pallid, sickly little body, wasted away by months of constant fever. He had reached out and touched her hands, which were folded over her chest, once – they were clammy and cold and stiff and very _real._ She’d looked into his eyes.

Goodbye, she said, and Cutler, too shocked to grieve, still stuck in the quagmire of disbelief, was seized with the sudden temptation to push her closed eyelids back up – but he didn’t. 

Are you a superstitious man, Mister Mercer. He – and his so-called _clerk_ – were now tucked away in Calabar, as Beckett chased success out of spite. In fact, he was certain that this mad quest for power and influence and standing actually meant nothing, and that it would eventually be the death of him, but death no longer frightened him.

He wasn’t sure that _anything_ did anymore.

I wouldn’t say so, Sir. 

Beckett scoffed, because that isn’t what they say about Scotsmen. 

It’s relative, Sir. I suppose you could say that if you saw it then it would be real enough, Sir. The clerk clasped his roughened hands behind his back and waited for a response that never came. 

Most men, Beckett thought to himself, would blanch in fear if they were to be told with absolute certainty that ghosts _did_ exist – but as for himself? He desperately hoped they did. Somewhere within the recesses of his exterior shell, all the walls he had put up, built up over the years, he _clung_ to the possibility of it.


End file.
